Fleur De Lis
by lexi'ssorryforthis
Summary: Sherlock disappears just as Lestrade gets a case about a string of murdered families. Is it a message to Sherlock or from him? AU where this happens INSTEAD OF Reichenbach. Rating may change.
1. Prologue

Lestrade had gone to visit family in America. John had gone to take care of his sister after she'd had another binge-drinking session. Sherlock was bored. He couldn't muster the creativity for composing new music for his violin, and playing his favorites had grown dull, as had the telly. He'd done several experiments but now he needed to give them time to yield results. He even went out to eat an hour ago, but soon found the fellow patrons of Angelo's intolerable and opted to get his meal to go. At least it had taken until the second day for the boredom to catch up, and since it was getting to be nearly midnight, Sherlock figured he would check the website one last time before going to bed early. He didn't expect to find anything, but there, posted only two minutes ago anonymously was

"Come find me"

—-

The anonymity of the posting was a joke, of course; the odds were pretty stacked in favor of it being the Consulting Criminal. And while Jim wanting to play games wasn't anything new, Sherlock was more suspicious than he normally would have been. Could Jim know that he was alone? And if he did, there was no doubt he had something up his sleeve, something that could only be pulled off if Sherlock was without backup. It was a bad idea to be sure, but to decline the invitation would probably lead to more destruction - Moriarty could throw a hell of a temper tantrum.

"So I'd better go" Sherlock thought, "but where are you?" The IP address showed that the message was posted from an internet cafe down the block from… St. Bart's. Another message pinged in on the website: "The roof."

Sherlock left a note for John saying he was out and to not worry if he should find his pistol missing, just in case the good doctor came home today, and left 221B Baker Street.


	2. Mementos

Sherlock opened the door to St Bart's rooftop, turning up his coat collar against the cold 1 AM wind. There wasn't anyone in sight, and a quick sneak around the place revealed no one hiding. Had he gotten the place wrong? Sherlock looked around. No one on any other rooftop, including the cafe where the message had come from. Was he late? No, Sherlock had directed the cabbie to the quickest route, and there had been very little traffic. Early? Perhaps… or maybe not. Maybe the game was intended to last a little while. Sherlock smiled; Moriarty was always good at knowing when Sherlock was bored, and while it should worry him, Sherlock was glad for the distraction.

"So if this was a game, there should be clues, right?" thought Sherlock. "Where would our friendly bomber leave me clues?" He started on the ground, tracing the steps he thought fit the Consulting Criminal. There was only one door, and there was no way Moriarty would climb the building. So through the door, to the edge, looking over the street and the city, then back… to where? Not the door. Not the air conditioning unit. Not to any of the corners or the other sides of the roof. Sherlock peered over the edge of the roof and there, posted upside-down, was a bright yellow sticky note with a smiley face. "Oh" Sherlock surprised himself by saying it out loud. And he ran downstairs and hailed a cab back to his flat.

—

Half an hour later Sherlock burst into his living room, ready to kick the meddling Moriarty out. But again, no one was there. Not waiting, not hiding, nothing was missing or moved, the dust line was unbroken. Sherlock strode over to the bullet-riddled smiley he'd painted on the wall almost a year and a half ago. Something was lodged in one of the bullet holes… no, something was lodged in all of them. After digging each prize out of the wall with tweezers, Sherlock found himself holding a pill of poison from A Study in Pink, a tiny origami black lotus, an equally tiny cube of C4 (unactivated, no wires), a chunk of red lipstick, and a pile of breadcrumbs.

One memento from each of four cases Sherlock had solved, and a trail of breadcrumbs to link them all - Moriarty. Just another reminder of all the strings the Consulting Criminal had pulled so far, and Sherlock was quite sure that wasn't even a fraction of the number he actually held. But now where was he supposed to go? If the breadcrumbs hadn't been included he would have gone to each of the sites where the events took place, but that didn't seem to be the message. There were too many places, too many possibilities, and Sherlock didn't think Moriarty would be patient enough to wait for him to explore each location. "Still, better send a message out to the Homeless Network just to be sure," he thought, before another thought occurred to him: the website. John's website! It started with A Study in Pink, and all the other cases had stemmed from there. Sherlock almost tripped on the coffee table in his haste to get to the computer, but it was worth the bruised shin when he found a video posted on John's blog - a video of Moriarty breaking into the flat! It must have been filmed while Sherlock was on the roof of St Bart's! The text below the video said, "see you soon, boys! xxxx".

Four pips. Janus Cars had been the location the last time Moriarty had sent four pips, could that be where he was supposed to go? But the Janus Cars case had three locations in itself: the river where the car was found, the actual building where the business had operated, and the warehouse where Sherlock had explained the case to Lestrade… Sherlock looked over the prizes from the wall again, and took them over to his microscope. Nothing was hidden inside the pill capsule, and unfolding the lotus didn't yield any results. However, each side of the C4 cube was etched with a letter: CEFFIO. After making sure the lipstick didn't have any additional messages (it didn't), Sherlock left the flat for the former site of Janus Cars' office, making sure his homeless friends got out of harm's way as he rode in the cab.

He'd barely paid the cabbie before he was knocked out by a blow to the back of the head.


	3. Crime Scene

"Sherlock?" John called to his flatmate as he hung his keys on the hook.

No answer.

"Sherlock?" John poked his head in the kitchen. Empty.

"Where the bloody hell are you, it's important!" John looked in the bathroom. No Sherlock.

"Mate?" He wasn't in his room either, although John wasn't sure why Sherlock would be asleep at three in the afternoon. Maybe he was already on the case in Scotland Yard. John grabbed his keys and left, thinking it was strange that Sherlock hadn't left a note.

* * *

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Donovan was supposed to be presenting the facts on the case they had just been assigned, but it was pretty obvious that she was trying to sneak her opinions and deductions in as well, "before anyone from the outside gets in on it." The other members of the team were nodding to each other and looking over their files, although some looked a little apprehensive. Lestrade didn't have to ask why; a family of four slaughtered in an empty flat and the walls painted with their blood was pretty disturbing.

"No! You and your freak aren't on this case!" Sally's shouting interrupted Lestrade's reverie. John Watson was standing in the doorway, looking somewhat bewildered and perhaps a little bit worried.

"Sherlock isn't here?" he said, and Lestrade immediately wished he hadn't. Anderson and Donovan were looking at each other, and a few people were whispering.

After a brief facepalm, Lestrade gave a stern warning to his team, "Alright, nobody jump to conclusions. If your judgement gets clouded just because a bloke forgot to tell his roommate where he was going, I'll kick you off the case. No suspects until we thoroughly examine the crime scene! Got it?" A few curt nods gave him an answer, and Lestrade took Watson aside.

"Sorry, Greg. I thought you might have called him in already."

"I was considering it, but let's just wait until we're all stumped first, okay? How did you even know about this?"

"Mycroft texted me; told me I should get back to London because I might be needed soon. Something about a murdered family."

"Okay, did he say anything else? I need to keep control of this case, understand" Lestrade crossed his arms.

"No, just that you would probably want us." John looked a little embarrassed to have barged in without an invitation.

"Alright, mate. Go home, Sherlock will be back eventually. Probably ran out of chemicals or something." Lestrade chuckled a little at his own joke, and John left with a smirk.

* * *

The crime scene was sickening. The flat was empty except for a large white sofa, where the victims sat, hands folded neatly in their laps. Mother, father, and two young boys (about 4 and 12), all with their throats slit. The younger boy was placed in the mother's lap holding a Rubix Cube, the older boy sat in the middle of his parents with a copy of Treasure Island, and the father's arm was placed over his wife's shoulders. The man and boys wore suits, the woman a white pantsuit and sweater. Aside from their throats, there didn't seem to be any other injuries. The walls of the flat were pristine white, but the wall directly behind the family had a grid design with a Fleur-de-Lis in the center, painted in the blood of the family. No other surface had any blood on it - even the victims' bodies had been cleaned of it.

Sally Donovan grimaced at the smell while officers rushed about taking pictures and tracing the bodies. Sometimes she hated her job. Like when children were murdered. Or when Lestrade underestimates her. Could he really have thought that she suspected the freak already? She was only looking at Anderson to make sure he wasn't doing the exact same thing. He may be cute (and good in bed), but he could really be a dunce sometimes. Truth be told, Sally at first was glad for Sherlock's help, because those were usually the cases where Anderson was being particularly thick and difficult. But as time went on and their mutual courtesy was stretched thin, she found herself more and more sympathetic to Anderson, until she eventually started sleeping with him. That had been the straw that broke the camel's back, and Sherlock and Donovan began to openly dislike each other. She figured it was because she had disappointed him with her decision and perhaps if she broke it of with Anderson then she and Sherlock would get on better, but she wasn't very interested. Sherlock may not be a psychopath, and he might not even be as much of a freak as she pretends to think she is, but he's definitely an asshole.

Anderson was muttering to himself as he made notes on the clipboard. The, um, artwork on the wall had been done with a brush, and the sofa had been moved from a junkyard outside and covered in a white sheet and made to look relatively nice, but no other surfaces had been disturbed and there were no fingerprints or footprints or anything. The clothes the family wore were fairly old, probably coming from the seventies, and it looked like they had dressed themselves - nothing was awkwardly shifted or out of place. "Maybe the killer left a note or something where the family lives?" Anderson mused aloud. Donovan shrugged, circling the sofa.

"Did we ID the bodies?" Lestrade checked in.

"Nothing on them, we'll have to wait for the medical records." Donovan continued circling. She wanted to be sure before she presented her theory.

"Sir, I'm pretty sure it's a mock-up of a family photograph."

"Well whose family?"

"If it's not a famous family portrait, maybe the killer's?"

"Well then, Sergent Donovan," Lestrade smiled proudly, "you'd better get researching."


	4. Help Me

Lestrade exhaled his cigarette. It was getting on eight in the evening, and he had just received Anderson's forensics report on the Fleur de Lis murder. The family had been killed elsewhere, drained entirely of blood, dressed in the clothes they were found in and placed in the room, while the blood was painted on the back wall with a brush. Disturbingly, most of the blood on the wall seemed to have come from the youngest child - comprising the entire Fleur de Lis while the other members of the family got only a stripe on the wall. But what really bothered Lestrade was the fingerprints found on the Rubix Cube the littlest boy held. Records matched them with the prints of one Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

Mycroft Holmes was not an easy man to worry, unless it came to Sherlock. The Consulting Detective was more reckless than anyone Mycroft had ever met, and worse was the fact that his recklessness changed patterns constantly. Sherlock was always getting at trouble when he was bored, but the ways that he got in trouble had changed dramatically. When he was a child he would climb the furniture, but that ceased to ease his boredom after he managed to climb to the highest point of the roof of the house. Next it was by practicing martial arts and sparring with the staff around the house, although only a few could provide decent enough challenge for the protoge. In college and for some time after Sherlock turned to drugs, and only stopped at Mycroft's begging after his second near-fatal overdose. Now Sherlock got his kicks by chasing after dangerous criminals, and Mycroft didn't think his capacity for worrying for his brother could increase any more. He was very, very wrong.

He'd gotten the picture message from a blocked number, one of a dead family in a room and the wall behind them painted in blood. After calling it in to Lestrade, he messaged his brother and his best friend, concerned that it might also be a message for them. But John had phoned in about an hour ago saying that Sherlock was nowhere to be found. Apparently no one had seen him since yesterday night, when Mrs. Hudson saw him return to the flat from getting dinner from Angelo's. Mycroft had checked the CCTV footage and couldn't find anything suspicious after that. Wherever Sherlock was, he didn't want to be found.

The phone rang on his desk to his right, and it was another picture message. Another anonymous message, another family dead. Mycroft immediately forwarded it to Lestrade before he noticed the text at the bottom of the picture: "Help me - SH".

Mycroft's dinner almost came back up. The last time that Sherlock sent him a message with those words, he'd overdosed on heroin.

* * *

When Lestrade saw the picture, his cigarette fell out of his mouth. "Donovan! Anderson! Get a team together now!" he yelled, realizing, once again, that they were dealing with an incredibly sick son of a bitch.

Then he saw the text and the phone crashed to the floor with the last embers of the cigarette.


	5. Questioning

_A/N: Oh my gosh you guys actually like this! When I posted, I posted everything I'd written so far, but I'm going to try to do daily updates as long as it keeps being good. I have a direction that I want this to go, but I need to sort out some of the details_.

* * *

The Scotland Yard office was a flurry of ringing phones and humming copiers, and the smell of coffee was everywhere. John Watson, in an attempt to not get in everyone's way, sat on a bench in the hall. If it had been an ordinary case his mind probably would have wandered to what he would have for dinner or whether or not he should call that girl from the bar the other night, but this case had suddenly become very, very extraordinary.

John sighed and rested his face in his hands, going over the events of the past five days in his head. Five days ago he and Sherlock had a very normal day – for them. Sherlock had taken over the freezer with an experiment involving testing the rigidity of duct tape in below-freezing temperatures (John became uncomfortable whenever he theorized why this information would come in handy) while John checked on the blog and his email until he got a call from his sister that she was sick with the flu. Neither of the boys believed for one second that she wasn't drunk but no matter how angry John could get at his sister for her drinking, he knew he would always take care of her. So he packed up for a few days and told Sherlock not to blow up the flat, and left. He took care of Harriet for three days and on the third night he got a call from Mycroft.

"You should get back to Baker Street, John. There's going to be a case soon."

"Wait, how do you know this?" John didn't doubt him, but this seemed to be the first time Mycroft knew about a case before Sherlock. At least, that's what it seemed. He hadn't heard from Sherlock since he left, complaints of boredom or otherwise.

"I just called it in to Lestrade. Someone killed an entire family and sent a photo of it to my phone. It seems that someone wants my attention." The tone of Mycroft's voice sent a shiver through John. Somehow dealing with Sherlock's brother always made him feel uneasy. "Don't worry, you've helped your sister make quite a recovery. I'm sure she'll be fine for a while, and I'll arrange for someone to check on her tomorrow morning."

So John went back to 221B, only to find it Sherlock-free. Assuming he'd already been called in by Lestrade, John hailed a cab to Scotland Yard. This was yesterday. Today, though, he'd been brought to be questioned on the whereabouts of Sherlock Holmes.

"John" Lestrade motioned for him to come in. Finally.

"Okay, when was the last time you saw him?" Lestrade looked more like a concerned dad than an inspector on the hunt for a murder suspect. Maybe John had read the situation wrong and Sherlock wasn't a suspect at all.

"Five days ago I left to take care of Harry, then two days ago Mycroft called me about your case, and yesterday I came home and he wasn't there."

"And what was he doing when you left?"

"Uh… Experimenting on putting duct tape in the freezer." _For crying out loud, Sherlock, why do you have to be so weird?_ Lestrade raised an eyebrow and John knew that something fit together with the case. Lestrade sighed and pushed the file on the family photo murders to John, who leafed through the documents and photographs inside. After a few minutes, the inspector spoke again.

"John, the victims had died in freezing temperatures. There was duct tape residue on their wrists. Moreover, the Rubix Cubes that was found with the both families of victims were covered in Sherlock's fingerprints, and at the second crime scene-"

"Hang on the temperature means nothing. And the cube could have been stolen or something." John was livid, but he kept his voice steady.

Lestrade shook his head. "The second crime scene had a hair on the floor. We ran the DNA results, it came back as Sherlock Holmes."

John silently handed back the file. _There had to be something they were missing, right? Sherlock would know. If it were John, Sherlock would know the answer._

"Did you talk on the phone with Sherlock while you were with your sister?" Lestrade really didn't want to be doing this, but better him than Donovan or, God forbid, Anderson. John shook his head, thinking hard about what detail he could have possibly missed.

The silver-haired man looked down at the file in front of him and scribbled a note in the margins, frowning to himself. When he spoke next, he found that he couldn't control the worry in his voice: "And what was the last thing he said to you before you left?"

John paled, then cleared his throat. "He said he was sure he could find some way to entertain himself." Both men facepalmed at once.


	6. Paris

**AN: HOLY CRAP.**

Ten days had gone by. Ten days with no new leads on the Fleur de Lys killer, as the case was being called. Ten days without news on Sherlock. John was going to loose his bloody mind.

"Dear, stop pacing, it won't help anything other than putting a hole in the carpet!" Mrs. Hudson admonished her tenant during tea. "Honestly, I don't think you've stopped since you got back from your sister's place!"

"That's because I haven't, Mrs. Hudson."

"Well now you sit," Mrs. Hudson pushed John onto his chair with a surprising amount of force, "and you drink your tea and eat a biscuit." After John took a long sip of his tea (with the most incredulous look on his face that was usually reserved for Sherlock and his antics), she continued, "So, how are things at work?"

John shook his head, "I took a leave of absence until this is all cleared up. I couldn't concentrate on the patients so Sarah sent me home."

"Well why don't you go see your girlfriend, then?"

"Jeannette broke up with me on Christmas, remember?"

"Oh yes, sorry dear. She was nice though… Still, I'm sure you'll meet someone else soon if you'll just put yourself out there."

"That's great and all, but I really don't care right now." John stared into his empty teacup. The silence lingered awkwardly for a minute before he picked up the remote. "Telly?"

"Yes, please!" Mrs. Hudson was grateful for something to distract them.

* * *

It had been eleven days. Eleven days without any new leads, or new ideas. Eleven days of waiting for the next family to be found dead.

On the eleventh day, that family was found in Paris, France.

"Sir, there's trouble in Paris!" Donovan burst in on Lestrade having a moment with a donut.

"Not our division," the DI answered with his mouth full.

"You'll want it," Sally waived the case file in front of him. Lestrade's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the faxed copy of the crime scene photos.

"Get Anderson and the team together. And get Dr. Watson, I imagine he's nearly exploded by now."

"Dr. Watson, sir?" Donovan didn't have to elaborate her point. Watson was a civilian who had a personal stake in the case; bringing him into a case that just became international was beyond their usual breach of protocol. But Lestrade nodded.

"We need him – well, we need Sherlock, but John will have to be good enough. You know what Anderson is like."

Half an hour later, the Scotland Yard team was on their way to meet Dr. John Watson at the airport.

* * *

"Oh God," John said as he walked into the room where the family was found.

"You said it," Lestrade pushed past him in the doorway and started shouting orders to the rest of the team. John stayed in the entrance for another minute to control his impulse to puke. When he was no longer queasy, he joined Lestrade where he was talking to the French DI.

The bodies had already been taken to the morgue, the evidence on the bodies catalogued. Donovan was taking pictures of the room while Anderson inspected the blood on the wall, and a third officer was digging through his bag near the couch. The wall looked the exact same as the last crime scene: two horizontal stripes and two vertical ones framed a Fleur de Lys, taking up the entire wall. The blood had been applied thickly, and John watched Anderson scrape some from several areas into it's own little baggie to be tested in the lab (_by someone who isn't Sherlock_, his brain supplied). Bits of Lestrade's conversation with the French officer filtered into his consciousness.

"… in cold temperatures?"

"Oui. Who is the short man?"

"Doctor John Watson, uh…" John stepped into the conversation before he realized he didn't have much of a good explanation prepared. Fortunately, Lestrade saved him.

"He's a consultant, we work with him a lot on our tough cases. John, this is DI Luc Peterson of the Parisian force. He's been leading the investigation."

John and Peterson shook hands, and the two inspectors returned to their conversation.

"On our side, we had one, uh, stripe, from each member of the family, and then the younger kid's blood was the whole middle bit."

"We have not gotten the results of the blood back from the lab yet, but as soon as we do I'll have them sent to you."

Lestrade smirked. "Good, because I doubt our forensics guy is as good as yours… Anderson! Check the couch!" He turned back to Watson and Peterson after barking orders, "I swear, I don't know why he got hired. Or why he stayed hired after more than one case!" John's face involuntarily twitched into something of a smile for a moment.

"So what is it that you want me to be doing here, again?" John had thought that he was supposed to inspect the bodies, but they weren't here.

"I know you were reading the case notes, just go over the place and tell me what you think."

"But what am I looking for?"

"Start with if it's the same perp or a copycat, and if anything jumps out at you we'll take it from there."

John started searching the perimeter of the room. He had, in fact, read the case notes several times over, and found himself agreeing with Donovan's theory of the scene mocking a family photo. A nod from Anderson confirmed that the brush strokes on the wall were similar to the ones from the London scenes, and the couch was as spotless as the other – but lifting the sheet that covered the furniture revealed it was likely hauled from a junkyard.

"Sorry, can you describe the victims?" John rejoined Lestrade and Peterson.

"Mother, father, two boys aged four and twelve, no ID on them. Boys were dark-haired, father grey, mother auburn. The little one was holding a puzzle cube, the older one had a copy of _Treasure Island_. We're waiting on the prints as well," the French officer responded.

"Yeah, we have some prints from the cubes of the two London scenes, we'll give them to you to see if they're the same," Lestrade interrupted.

"Wait, you have prints? That's huge! Why wasn't that in the reports you gave me?" John was incredulous.

Lestrade ran a hand through his silver hair and pulled John aside. "I forgot I did that… John, the prints were Sherlock's. I didn't want you to freak out, so I took them out of your copy of the report."

"You WHAT?! My best friend is missing, and now he's connected to some serial killer, and you didn't want me to WORRY?!" John's shouting caused everyone else to stop what they were doing and look over, but he didn't care. "No, it's not just that, you think he's a bloody suspect, don't you? Did Anderson put you up to this? Huh? Because there's no way anyone with half a brain who knows Sherlock would think he would do something like this!"

Before Lestrade could explain, DI Peterson interjected, "Inspector, are you telling me that you let a suspect's boyfriend investigate the crime scenes?"

"OH MY GOD!" John's face went beet red and without another word (and without missing Donovan and Anderson poorly trying to hide their laughter) stormed out of the apartment building and hailed a cab.

* * *

After about five solid minutes, Lestrade finally brought his hand away from his forehead. "They're not actually dating, they share an apartment, though. Everyone gets on their case and John can get a bit touchy about it. I think he lost a girlfriend over it a few months back, actually."

The Frenchman stared Lestrade down, "But the point still stands that you just let a close friend of a suspect investigate the crime scene, yes?"

"Sherlock Holmes is not a suspect, he's a missing persons we think is connected to all this." Lestrade shot Anderson a look that could kill when the latter mumbled "For now, anyway."

"I suppose we'll have to be on the lookout for this Mr. Holmes as well, then."

"Yeah, look, if you do end up finding him… Just… Try not to punch him, okay?" Lestrade noticed his team standing around waiting for him. "Well I guess we're done here, we'll be in touch, yeah?"

Peterson nodded, and Scotland Yard headed out, Lestrade shooting John a text to meet them at the airport in an hour.

**AN 2.0: HOLY CRAP! Thanks to everyone who didn't give up on the story through this VERY long hiatus, and especially to one HC, who I could not PM because they weren't signed in. HC, you made me tear up and start writing this chapter, so GIVE YOURSELF THE BIGGEST POSSIBLE ICE CREAM SUNDAE AS A REWARD, ALRIGHT?**


	7. Review

As soon as they got back from Paris, Lestrade, Anderson, and Donovan went into the DI's office to go over the case notes. With three crime scenes and twelve bodies, they knew they had to be missing something important. Files were open, notes and pictures were everywhere, and the coffee was rapidly disappearing.

"Okay, one more time, what have we got?" Lestrade asked as he rubbed the exhaustion out of his face.

Donovan shuffled through a pile of notes, "Victims were all families of four with two boys, one age four holding a Rubic's Cube, and one age twelve holding a copy of Treasure Island. Two families killed in London, and one in Paris. Throats were slit, blood was drained of all the victims and was used to paint a Fleur de Lys design on one wall of the crime scene. They were killed somewhere else and put in the flats they were found in afterwards, along with a sofa covered in a sheet in each flat," she paused and turned to Anderson sitting next to her.

"Um, each member of the family gets one stripe on the grid on the wall, and the actual Fleur de Lys is made up entirely of blood from the four year old. All victims had sticky residue on their wrists resembling duct tape, and the wounds showed signs of being inflicted under cold temperatures."

"Prints? Anything?" Lestrade prompted.

"All three Rubic's Cubes had prints matching Sherlock Holmes…" Anderson hesitated, "and the books all had prints matching Mycroft Holmes –"

"Wait, that can't be right!" Lestrade flipped through a few pages of case notes before Anderson stopped him.

"Mycroft's prints were lifted from something he owned and then grafted onto the books, sir. Every print is identical, we ran the tests."

"What about Sherlock's?" Lestrade asked after a beat. Anderson shook his head.

"Sherlock's prints vary on a whole bunch of levels. Here," the forensic scientist pulled out a few sheets from the lab and circled where prints were partial or whole, or had differing levels of oils, or showed evidence of a finger gliding along the cube to rest in a particular spot. "It's almost impossible to fake something like that," he concluded, in reference to the last point.

Lestrade nodded, looking miserable and tired. "Anything else?" He doubted there would be.

"Sir," Donovan started, "how did we find out about this again?"

Lestrade shrugged and said, "Anonymous tip. Any other questions?"

Donovan and Anderson looked at each other, before replying "No" in perfect unison. Satisfied with the review, but not satisfied with the extent of their knowledge, they began to pack up their things and head home for the night.

**Hope that was a good enough review of everything that's been going on! I finally actually mapped out the story (but I think I'm going to add a chapter now…), so things should start making a modicum of sense now. Also, it means I don't have to think as hard about what I'm going to write, so more frequent updates, yay!**

**Yes, I deleted the author's note. It didn't need to be there anymore.**

**To HC: I wish you had an account so we could message each other, but I totally get it – I wait for forever before making an account for anything! As for Sherlock… I'm sorry, but you're not going to find out for a little while yet! I have it planned for like the third to last chapter or something to start writing from his POV (which can't come soon enough because everyone else is FREAKING DIFFICULT).**


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